Recommended: yes ♥
For a sweet light story, for drama mixed with humour, for characters you'll love

See the full review and more at mybookjoy.com!

Thoughts:
The light and watery art style is a perfect match to this story, because it's overall pretty lighthearted with some moments of pain and depth for the characters to grow from. It's pretty irresistible to have the tough bad guy's heart slowly thawed by the adorable little fluff chub. Yet despite some character changes throughout they also do stay true to themselves in many ways too; there's no miraculous conversions or sudden 180s here.

I really need to emphasize how much this made me laugh, too. Not just in terms of how often I laughed, but the force of my laughter. The frog part had me laughing so hard I cried, partly because it was just so unexpected, and I re-read it several times, laughing that hard every time. In fact, I'll probably go read it again when I'm done writing this, because it was such a pure joy.

Between sections are short info panels on the different kinds of bakemono, their powers, their history, relationship to the gods, and so on. I really enjoyed these because they gave me context for each character that I was missing without the cultural knowledge. Even for people who are more familiar with bakemono, the panels are beautifully done; I wish I could print them out and frame them!

The key reason why this is missing its fifth star is because I was reading along, laughing, crying, getting all the feels, when I went to the next page and it was an ad for another book. It ended! At a really weird moment! It felt so abrupt that I went back and made sure I hadn't missed something, but no... that's the end of this segment. That threw me off quite a lot, but I am really excited for the next installment, so maybe that's what they were going for. Regardless, this was an absolute delight!

Thanks to NetGalley and TokyoPop for a free copy in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Recommended: yes!!
For more heartwarming moments, for a volume looking at some of the other characters in depth, for an interesting addition in the world we see them all in

Thoughts:
Well, the cliffhanger from Volume 1 is no longer hanging over my head, thank goodness! I was so excited to come back to this story in Volume 2. As ever, the art perfectly complements the story style, in how it's able to carry so many different kinds of meaning effortlessly. Everything from the funny moments, to the painful moments, to the crying-because-it's-beautiful moments: the art style is adaptable to all of them.

And yes, no worries: this volume is just as hilarious and cute as the previous, despite it's darker tones as well. What I loved most about this one was being able to learn more about the characters besides the Senzou and Manpachi. Though we do still have stories with them, we also get to see more about some of the wolves and even about our frenemy the badger. Personally I loved this, in part because the relationship between the wolves are so delightful in their contrasting personality that it was enlightening to see how they each got that way.

We also get to see them in their human forms a bit more, which was a shocker but also a fantastic addition. Their interactions in the human world were still perfectly in character and added a twist element to the plot moving forward. I expect we'll see a bit more of this weaving between worlds in future volumes as well.

One extra bonus at the end that I loved was the inclusion of some short one-off comics with the characters that were translated into English. Some of these comics have been posted on the author's social media pages in Japanese, so here I finally got the English versions! And let me tell you, they did not disappoint. It's always hard to end one of these volumes because I adore the characters so much and want to see more, so it made it a little easier to accept. ( )

One of my favorite characters was; of course, Manpachi! He is the most adorable cub ever; I want to wrap him up and hug him. Lol, what I enjoyed so much in the story was the relationship evolution between Senzou and Manipachi. The witty banter amongst the two added a light comedic air to the overall arch of the narrative. The artwork depicting the tail of the once-great spirited fox was truly exquisite. If you are unfamiliar with Japanese Fantasies and are new to reading the genre; it may be hard at first to understand all the mythical creatures and the history behind them. Overall, I am very intrigued to see where the story continues in future volumes of the series. ( )

Listen. This had all the makings of stories I usually love: You got a surly MC who has to protect someone/thing cute and innocent, a super adorable art style, and a family-friendly story with none of the usual ills of manga. But this just wasn’t hitting for me.

If the library orders volume 2, I’ll probably take a look, but on my own, I’m not too interested in reading more.

[rating from enjoyment] ( )